THE SATURDAY night TV line-up, sponsored by the Happy Happy World of Haribo, has its most garish, visual e-number packed, addictive piece of pap back – Strictly Come Dancing. It’s become something of an autumn institution, albeit an institution which would have been unimaginable ten years ago, but nonetheless an institution.
This year, the BBC, and in particular their former Controller of BBC1, Peter (did he fall or was he pushed) Fincham, have really ramped up their favourite pastime of milking every drop out of a successful format by inserting an over-long results show in Sunday’s schedule. Don’t be confused though, I lap it all up – I don’t know if I should be ashamed of admitting it, but I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of episodes I’ve missed – ever. Sitting writing this on Monday morning, the weekend’s glitter ball, sequin clad, entertainment seems as if it might have happened to someone else – if indeed it happened at all.
It might be my brain’s reaction to seeing John Barnes’ ample bulk, clad in skin-tight, bright yellow, lycra, but for something that occurred only hours ago, my brain seems have to adopted a policy of denial. Something happened to the British public – it took place years ago, and it probably happened in the water supplies – we’re now able to stomach the most bizarre diet of Saturday evening telly I would have ever been able to dream up ten years ago. Our flat-cap wearing ancestors would be ashamed of us, but I can’t help but feel that they’d have no choice other than watching with us. My case in point, Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway, is one of ITV’s most popular programmes.
It actually is SMTV Live – I don’t mean that it is similar to the kids’ show featuring the two annoying Geordies, it actually is the same show. SMTV used to feature Ant and Dec in sketches, which weren’t funny to me when I was an eleven year old, but now, they’ve been re-branded, promoted to primetime and attract audiences of eight million plus. CITV is no more, but I can’t help but feel that it’s simply moved upstairs into “adult” shows. They treat the adult contributors in exactly the same way as they did the kids, back in the day.
They seem to run a feature where the naughty little adults laugh at all the naughty little things they’ve done – including one telling her seven-year-old son that she lied when she told him they’d stop manufacturing his favourite comic, and revealing that she once rubber her boss’s chips on a cat (?!). I wouldn’t be surprised if Derren Brown was behind it all, because it is, like the master mentalist, impressive and sinister in equal measures, but somehow, we’ve been conditioned to accept – accept and even like – a primetime line up of campery, kids TV, and sci-fi adventure, in which Byker Grove’s PJ and Duncan are the main attraction. It reminds me of an episode of The Demon Headmaster where subliminal imaging was used to control our minds – using, you’ve guessed it, a gaudy, popular TV show. Am I the only one who finds it disturbing?
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